Skip main navigation

New offer! Get 30% off your first 2 months of Unlimited Monthly. Start your subscription for just £29.99 £19.99. New subscribers only. T&Cs apply

Find out more

Features of heritage governance

Based on what we have discussed so far, we can identify three main features in heritage governance today
14.1
So far, we have seen three main features of heritage governance. One is that that it is multilevel. So that means there’s both a horizontal cooporation and vertical cooporation. Now, vertical means between international, national, regional, and even local authorities and actors. And horizontal means between actors from different sectors. So both public and private actors, actors that are not for profit, but also curators, experts, artists, businesses, and of course local authorities, national ministries, or international organisations. Second element that we have seen is the heritage policy is now interrelated with other policies like education, tourism, but also, generally, business innovation and small and medium enterprises.
63.9
A third feature has to do with heritage governance being no longer top-down, no longer expert-dominated, but largely being decentralised, including outsourcing, managerialisation, for instance, the foundations, the cultural foundations and associations. And also, with much more community participation.

In this video, we point out three main features in heritage governance today.

Heritage governance has traditionally been linked to the nation-state and was centralised – a task entrusted to culture ministries and their different branches and experts. It was thus both centralised and expert-dominated. It was also mainly funded by the state – there was little activity in terms of public-private partnerships as heritage was conceived as ‘national property’.

During the past 15 years, heritage governance has undergone a process of transformation leading to a number of changes:

There is a trend for increased decentralisation in heritage governance today which is in itself further manifested in four distinct processes.

  1. First, outsourcing: many functions of heritage preservation, such as cataloguing, or inventorying, restoration, are outsourced to private (whether profit or not for profit) actors. This strategy offers higher flexibility and efficiency compared to a capillary system of public employees and offices.

  2. Second, there is a high degree of devolution: regional and local actors are given both power and responsibility in managing their own region’s or city’s heritage. This happens with a view to recognising the specific needs of each local reality as well as its potential. It also privileges a stronger sense of ownership of heritage by local and regional communities. The aim is to cut red tape and allow for heritage to also become a lever of both cultural and economic development.

  3. Third, there is an increasing tendency towards managerialisation in the governance of heritage. While experts have become less powerful in the governance of heritage, the role of managers (of museums, libraries, cultural foundations) becomes increasingly important as there is an expectation that each cultural institution shows a high degree of autonomy as well as self-sustainability.

  4. Fourth, there is a certain tendency for privatisation in the governance of heritage. This tendency is more controversial as it goes far beyond outsourcing or managerialisation to the outright concession of cultural heritage places or items (such as natural landscapes or historical buildings and collections) entirely to private operators who would be responsible for managing them overall.

This article is from the free online

Cultural Heritage and the City

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now